


Anamorphosis

by solomonara



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Drugs, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of self-harm, The Snow Queen retelling, contains neither snow nor queens, mostly pre-slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solomonara/pseuds/solomonara
Summary: Mirror, the drug was called, and it made the world seem like a better place. A good place. It made you see everything the way you always thought it should be, and there were no side effects.Except when there were.Jason is accidentally exposed to the new drug he and Dick are investigating.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 22
Kudos: 291





	Anamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [elwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwon/pseuds/elwon) for this prompt, and to [DragonSorceress22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonSorceress22/pseuds/DragonSorceress22) for her beta work and for helping me figure out a title!! Speaking of which...
> 
> Anamorphosis: an image (or the technique of creating an image) that appears warped or distorted until you view it from a specific perspective.

"What are you doing here, Wing?" Red Hood asked, dropping silently to crouch next to Nightwing. They were on a rooftop strategically positioned to overlook a different rooftop, specifically the rooftop garden of one Miss Bianca Dronning, who was currently hosting a small soiree.

"Bustin' some drugs," Nightwing said with a grin, though he didn't take his eyes off the gathering of people in Dronning's garden.

"What a coincidence," Hood said. "That this just so happens to be the case I've been working for the last month."

"Is it?" Nightwing asked innocently. "Imagine that. Well, if you want me to butt out—"

"Shut up, you're staying," Red Hood said, sounding both resigned and amused.

"Well, if you insist." Nightwing knew he sounded smug. He didn't care, and neither did Red Hood. "Pizza after?"

"I've been craving Thai," Hood said.

"I could go for Thai."

Things had been going… _well_ between them, ever since Dick had gone to Jason for help on a case that had turned out to be just a huge misunderstanding involving a high schooler's harmless senior prank that had gotten wrung through the rumor mill. Jason had laughed himself sick at Dick's mistake, and Dick had joined him. Somehow after that it magically became okay for Dick to bring takeout to Jason's to talk through the details of a (real) case… and then it was okay to bring takeout and just talk. Or watch a movie. Or text when they were bored…

And now months later it was okay for Dick to crash one of Jason's cases and be welcome.

"Not our normal scene for a drugs bust," Nightwing said.

"It's not a normal drug," Red Hood pointed out. "Look, there by the roses."

Dronning was tipping a paper envelope over a guest's champagne glass. Silver glitter fell into it and the guest grinned before taking a lengthy sip.

"Idiots," Red Hood said.

"I don't think they know how many people have died from it," Nightwing said. "I'm sure the dealers aren't advertising it. So what's the play? Interrogation? Confiscating samples?"

Red Hood snorted. "You think I've been just sitting on my ass for the past month, is that it? No, we're here for the lab. Dronning down there isn't just a distributor. She makes this shit. We're going to stop her."

With that, Red Hood anchored a line and dove off the building, aiming for a small balcony several floors below. Nightwing bit back a happy laugh and followed.

Mirror, the drug was called, and it made the world seem like a better place. A good place. It made you see everything the way you always thought it should be, and there were no side effects.

Except when there were.

About two percent of users, from what Nightwing had been able to tell in his information-gathering, were flung into some kind of depressive fugue. They might come out of it when the drug left their system; they might not. Many became a danger to themselves.

Nightwing thought Mirror might be a failed formulation of Ivy's that some henchman had walked off with. Red Hood thought it was something entirely new. They bickered about it good-naturedly in the darkened lab three floors below the glittering garden party upstairs.

Nightwing had to hand it to Dronning, she had guts having a drug lab right in the middle of the city in a well-to-do high-rise.

"Any clue where she got the recipe?" Nightwing asked.

"Part of what we're looking for," Red Hood said. "Client list would be nice but I'm thinking that's in her— oh, hello, office." He'd found a false shelving unit that slid aside to reveal a little nook with not much more than a computer, desk, and chair. He sat down and prodded the computer into life.

"This stuff is like glass," Nightwing said. He was eyeing a beaker of clear liquid with small silvery shards settled at the bottom. "It looks sharp. People drink this?"

There was a distracted agreement from the office nook and Nightwing looked up. Hood had taken off his helmet and connected it with a short cable to the computer.

"Find something, or leaving something?" Nightwing asked.

"Found something," Hood said, tossing a grin over his shoulder. Thanks to the lightweight domino that was his backup mask today, one with no lenses, Nightwing could see the grin in his eyes, too. Definitely a nice change from the impassive helmet. "Once I get this cloned we can go. She'll never even know we were—"

The lights clicked on. Nightwing's escrima sticks were in his hands before he even finished turning to the door. Red Hood was on his feet, body between whoever had just walked in and the computer he was still cloning.

Bianca Dronning had a gun in her hand and was pointing it at Red Hood, even though Nightwing was closer to her. Nightwing was a little insulted by that, but mostly concerned because neither of them would be quick enough at this distance to disarm her before she got a shot off.

"Nightwing, please put down your weapons or I will shoot Red Hood somewhere he isn't wearing body armor."

"Sure, sure," Nightwing said, placing the sticks carefully on the lab table in front of him. "You might want to think this through though. One of you, two of us. Running when you noticed us in here would have been smarter."

"Thanks for your concern, but I like my odds," she said, with far more confidence than Nightwing liked. "Move." She gestured with the gun to point him in Red Hood's direction.

He shifted in that direction and Red Hood blinked. He blinked a few times. Nightwing gave the slightest tip of his chin to show he understood.

The flash bomb, when Hood dropped it, whited out the lenses of Nightwing's domino for just an instant before the night/day vision function corrected itself. It didn't matter; he and Red Hood (who had only his eyelids for protection and would need cover for a few moments) were already moving on instinct so that when the shot rang out, the bullet buried itself in plaster rather than either of them.

Nightwing rolled to his feet and vaulted a lab table, scooping up his escrima sticks on his way to Dronning. Red Hood stayed on the other side of the lab, his own gun in his hand now, backing him up while guarding the computer still connected to his helmet.

Dronning was blinking rapidly, holding the gun in front of her with a surprisingly steady hand for someone who couldn't see anything to aim at. He approached from the side just in case and was just about to pull the weapon from her hands when she fired blind – straight into a mass of glassware and distilling Mirror.

A silver cloud erupted into the air and Nightwing tackled Dronning to the ground, both to immobilize her and to duck the cloud of sparkling fragments. A soft curse from Hood's direction froze Nightwing's blood.

"Hood?" he called.

"Fine," Hood snapped. "Dronning?"

"Got—oof," Nightwing grunted as Dronning's knee found his ribcage. She slithered out from under him and bolted for the door. Nightwing was quickly after her, but the sight of Red Hood kneeling on the floor, his face in his hands, stopped him.

"Hood, are you okay? Did you swallow any of it?" Nightwing asked.

"I'm all right _._ Did you get her?" He'd actually peeled off his mask in order to rub his eyes and now looked up at Nightwing, his left eye red and bloodshot.

"It got in your eyes?"

"I dunno. You need to—"

"We'll catch her later. She's not exactly a criminal mastermind. Let me look." Nightwing knelt in front of Hood and took his chin in one hand, tilting his face up. With the other he pulled out a flashlight. "Keep your eye open." He shone the light in Jason's eye, looking for any trace of silver shard. There didn't _seem_ to be—

"Get off," Jason said, knocking his hand away. "I told you, I'm fine. And you let her get away."

"And I told you we'll get her later. This stuff is everywhere," Nightwing said. It stood out starkly against the black of his suit, had even settled in Jason's hair. "We should get tox screens in case of inhalation, and we need to decontaminate our suits."

"Fine," Jason said, though he didn't sound happy about it.

"The Cave—"

"Over my dead body. You run home. I can take care of myself."

Nightwing rocked back on his heels. "Hood—"

"It wasn't a suggestion." He stood, nearly knocking Nightwing over in the process, and went back to the computer alcove. He yanked his helmet away, tucked it under his arm, and stalked out of the lab back to their entry point. Nightwing watched him go with a deepening wrinkle between his eyes.

Dick texted Jason when he was through the Cave's decontamination procedures and his blood test came back negative for Mirror.

_I'm in the clear, you?_

There was no response.

Dick gave it until the following afternoon and then, worried, showed up at Jason's door.

"Jason?" he called when his knock wasn't answered. "I brought Thai food." He hefted the bag like Jason could see. "Got you mango chicken."

No response. Dick stood there while the bag got weak with steam, then left.

He came back in uniform that night and broke in. Jason wasn't there, but the place didn't look abandoned; there was a solitary glass in the sink, a phone charger by the bed, milk in the fridge.

Jason's gear was missing, so he was probably out. Working the case? He'd seemed kind of mad that Dick had let Dronning get away, but Dick wasn't sure how much of that had been in-the-moment distress from the face full of glitter he'd taken.

Well, he'd told Jason tracking her down later would be no trouble so it was time to prove it – and hope that Jason had done the same.

Bianca Dronning had very sensibly used her ill-gotten gains to purchase a secondary residence in a less flash part of town. However, to someone who regularly outfitted safehouses under a variety of untraceable identities – someone like Nightwing or Red Hood, for example – her efforts to hide her trail had been laughable.

Nightwing was relieved to spot the distinctive red helmet a few rooftops away from Dronning's flat as he approached. He swung over in that direction, but his relief quickly turned to dismay as he saw that Red Hood wasn't merely observing from a distance; he was setting up a sniper rifle.

"Hood?" Nightwing asked, dropping onto the rooftop. The rifle did not look like it fired tranquilizer darts. He looked across the street and saw a red dot on the back of Dronning's head where she sat at her kitchen table. "What are you doing?" He _couldn't_ be actually planning to— not after so long without— not for _her_.

"Making the world a little less ugly," Red Hood said, and squeezed the trigger.

Nightwing hadn't even realized he'd been reaching for a batarang until it was flying. It collided with the rifle just as a shot cracked the air. Glass shattered and Nightwing ran to the edge of the roof to look across.

The window Hood had been aiming through was broken, but Dronning wasn't slumped over the table or even in the room that Nightwing could see.

"She'll run," Hood said, his voice dispassionate.

"Because you just tried to kill her! Hood, what— why?!"

"Why not?" A little heat had crept into his voice now. "I got all the information I needed from the lab. I know who she's been talking to, her contacts, her higher-ups. And I know that she knew about the side effects and kept producing anyway."

"We don't kill," Nightwing said.

Hood just stared at him – or at least, Nightwing thought he was staring at him. It was hard to tell with nothing but a reflective red surface to go off.

"I'm going after her," Nightwing said. "I'm arresting her and taking her to GCPD. And then you and I are having a conversation."

Red Hood didn't reply, and Dronning was getting away, so Nightwing swung off.

Dronning didn't resist. She was terrified from the near miss and actually seemed a little relieved to see it was Nightwing coming after her. Nightwing left her cuffed to the Batsignal then called Oracle to see if she could snag what Red Hood had copied from the lab computer and hand it over to the police with a note to check the roof.

He requested a copy, too. He needed to tie up any loose ends before Jason got to them.

He tried to get Jason on coms on his way back from dropping off Dronning, but of course he wasn't answering and he certainly hadn't stuck around on the rooftop near Dronning's flat to wait on a lecture. Nightwing paused in his flight across the city to think.

There was a lot of data to sift through from the lab computer; Oracle had said as much and asked him if there was anything particular he was looking for. He'd told her not to worry about it for now, and that he'd be in touch if he needed help.

Did he need help? If Jason had gone off-book, and he'd already had time to track down the guilty parties in the Mirror network, then time was definitely of the essence. But bringing the other Bats in because Jason had nearly murdered someone…

It was the Mirror. It had to be. It changed some peoples' behaviors. Jason wasn't exhibiting the dull depressive state that other victims had, but this sudden change couldn't be anything else. He was in danger. Maybe instead of going after the other players in this drug ring, Dick should go after Jason. Bring him in, get him under medical observation.

Jason would hate that. And he'd hate that Dick had brought the other Bats into it – because Dick was under no illusions that he could bring in Red Hood on his own. But he'd be alive.

Nightwing squared his shoulders and nodded once to himself, decision reached, and called Oracle back.

At first, Dick only asked Oracle and Batman for help; Oracle because she'd know soon enough anyway, and Batman because Dick wanted to be certain he didn't hear anything secondhand. But the rest of the Bats rallied to help before long. They found Mirror suppliers embedded throughout Gotham: in Black Mask's supply chains, in Penguin's clubs, in the black market where A-list rogues recruited. They found more labs, and even traced the origin.

Jason had been right; Mirror was something new, the result of a pharmacy grad student's experiments that she thought had failed, but that her labmate had seen opportunity in. Dick wished he could tell Jason so that Jason could crow about being right and tell Dick he owed him dinner (and then pay for half anyway) but…

Jason was the one thing they couldn't find.

It took two weeks of concentrated effort to mop up the last of Mirror – and to wipe every trace of the formula from the internet. Batman quietly began working on treatment for the side effects to help victims survive until their mental state returned to normal, but there was no one to use it on.

The drug didn't stay in anyone's system longer than three days after just one exposure, and the negative after effects began to dissipate after five, if the person lived that long.

Meanwhile, the milk in Jason's fridge had soured.

Dick made increasingly frantic rounds to each of the safehouses he knew about, searching for some sign they'd been visited and finding none. He put the word out to the Titans to keep an eye open for Red Hood. He called Clark, but Superman didn't know Jason's heartbeat. He looked anyway, but even Superman couldn't examine every face on the planet.

 _I'll memorize his heartbeat if I find him,_ Dick promised himself. _Right after I embed a subdermal tracker somewhere he can't dig it out._

And then, one night, Nightwing found Black Mask in Red Hood's territory, spotted him and a few goons heading into a vacant building. He followed, literally eavesdropping.

Black Mask was sizing the place up. It sounded like he was contemplating a satellite base of operations.

Nightwing dropped a smoke bomb and took out the henchmen in short order. By the time the smoke cleared, he had Black Mask held by the front of his tacky suit coat. "What brings you out this way, Roman?" Nightwing growled.

Black Mask grinned – well, he could hardly do anything else – and said, "A real estate opportunity. Nothing criminal about it."

"In the middle of Red Hood's territory?"

Black Mask made a show of looking around, as much as he could with Nightwing holding him against a wall. "I don't see him around, do you?"

Nightwing pulled him away from the wall only to slam him back into it. "What do you know?"

"I know Red isn't in any position to prevent my completely legal purchase of— argh!"

Nightwing had punched him. "What did you do to him?"

"Me? Nothing. You think if I had offed Red Hood there'd be a soul that didn't know about it? God, it's like he's the only one of you bat-types with any brains. I'm almost sorry he's gone."

Nightwing lowered his fist from where he'd been about to hit Black Mask again. "Gone?" he asked very, very calmly.

"Bit it. Toast. Couple of very reliable witnesses said they saw him take a dive off the Sprang Bridge."

"Lots of people I know do things like that. The thing about jumping from high places is it's a really efficient way to get to where the bad guys are and hurt them," Nightwing pointed out pleasantly.

"Yeah, okay. Yet here he isn't. No one's seen him for weeks. And between you and me, I heard that _someone_ sent a lackey who'd fucked up down to the school yard to give some kids some little treats, you know what I mean?"

Nightwing's grip tightened on Black Mask's jacket. "I know what you mean," he snarled.

"Surefire way to get on the wrong side of Red Hood. And yet."

That was true. Jason had a zero tolerance policy for anyone dealing to kids in his territory, and he _always_ found out about it.

"So, we done here? I've got henchmen – I mean business associates – to wake up."

Nightwing dropped his grip on Black Mask and backed away. "I'd rethink this investment. I hear these old buildings have a real bat problem." He grappled away while Black Mask was rolling his eyes.

* * *

"What the hell?" a slightly nasal, accented voice complained.

Dick sat back with a sigh of relief. "Hey, Boston."

"Did you summon me with a Ouija board?" Boston Brand demanded. "A Ouija board??"

"And a summoning circle. I need to ask you something." The penthouse was dark, with just a few candles lit around the board. Boston was hovering just in front of where Dick sat cross-legged on the floor. He'd drawn a summoning circle he'd seen Raven use once directly onto the floor, but it was a spot where a rug usually sat so he wasn't too concerned about Alfred's wrath.

"I don't think this has ever happened to me," Boston said. "Can you actually see me?"

"Kind of. Look, I—"

"How did you do this?"

"I'm Nightwing," Dick said, patience running out. "It's what I do. Can you help me?"

"Pretty sure Nightwing doesn't usually dabble in the occult," Boston said, his accent growing a little thicker, which was a sure indicator he was gearing up to be difficult.

"I need to know if someone is dead. Is that something you can tell me?"

"That's something a coroner could tell you, kid, you didn't need to drag me all the way to… Gotham?"

"Yes. And there's no body."

"Ah. I see." And Dick got the impression he actually did, because the vague, flickering outline of Boston crossed its legs and hovered closer to the floor, like he was sitting. "Look, if it's closure you're looking for—"

"No," Dick said. "I just. Need to know."

"That would be closure," Boston said.

"It's only closure if he's really gone. I'll owe you."

"Well. Never had a problem with a bat owing me a favor. Rama knows I owe the big guy plenty. I'll take a peek on the other side. Who am I looking for?"

"Jason Todd. The Red Hood."

Boston gave a low whistle. "Yeah, I know him. Funkiest aura I've ever seen. If he's over there, I'll find him. Back in a sec," he said.

The candles snuffed themselves out as Boston popped out of existence, leaving Dick sitting in the dark leaning against a rolled up rug. Should he re-light the candles, or…?

The candles _fzzt_ -d back into flame, and there was Boston. "Good news bad news time," he said. "Which do you want first?"

"Is he dead?" Dick asked. His hands were practically shaking, so he folded them in his lap.

"No. He's not on the other side, and no one saw him go by. And trust me, he's the kind of guy you notice."

"He's not dead," Dick repeated. "He's… not. Good. _Good_." His head was swimming with the relief of it. "Thank you. Seriously, thank you."

"Uh, you want the bad news now?"

Dick froze, his heart plummeting as quickly as it had lifted. "What is it?"

"You drew this summoning circle kind of wrong."

"What?" That wasn't about Jason at all, and Dick's mind was having trouble processing it.

"Like, you maybe learned this from a witch? Or maybe someone demon-affiliated? And you left off the little curly-cue on this doohickey here?" Boston said pointing at a spot on the floor.

"Oh. I only got a quick look at it like, a year ago."

"Kid. What."

"A friend of mine— never mind, long story. Is it a problem?"

"It's an open gate. You're lucky no one's noticed you hollering."

"Oh. I… guess I'll get the paint thinner then."

* * *

The weather was beautiful at the Outlaws' island. It was always beautiful. Dick set the Batplane to hover cloaked and rappelled down to the sandy beach, wondering if there was some kind of alien tech on their ship that made it always the perfect weather for a swim in the ocean.

As his boots touched sand, he braced himself. He was never quite sure the kind of welcome he'd get on the island – sometimes security bots, sometime lasers, sometimes a pleasant hello (though that last was usually when he'd called ahead and, admittedly, he hadn't this time.)

Jason was not dead, and he had been not dead for three weeks now, which meant the after-effects of the Mirror _had_ to have faded. But Jason hadn't turned up anywhere, and Dick could see him retreating to the island to recover both mentally and physically.

Dick would have called, but he knew how loyal Roy and Kori could be; he wanted to make it harder for them to lie to his face if Jason was here. And of course, if Jason had hidden away here and didn't want to be bothered, Dick would leave. He just had to _know._

To that end, he made his way to the lush, green foliage up the beach where the ship was usually parked. He was close enough to start to wonder how to knock when the door slid open and Roy poked his head out.

"Dick? Thought that was you! What brings you to paradise?"

"Jason." That was all. Roy would fill in the blanks by what he said, or didn't say, and how long it took.

Roy frowned and came down the ramp, rubbing at his hands with a rag so stained with engine grease it was more likely his hands were cleaning it than the other way around. "He okay?"

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"Haven't heard from him in a few weeks. Kori?" Roy called back into the ship. "You heard from Jay?"

"Is Jason here?" her voice echoed back. "Tell him I have missed him and will be out the moment these couplings are charged!"

"No, it's Dick!" Roy yelled back.

"Dick! Tell him I miss him, and will be out the moment these couplings are charged!"

Roy shrugged. "You heard the lady."

"Thanks, but I can't stay. Jason's missing. I was hoping he was here."

"Missing?" Roy echoed. "Like, stormed off in a huff missing or possibly kidnapped missing?"

"Neither, I don't think. He just… went off grid. He's not anywhere in Gotham, no activity globally that looks like him. Titans have been keeping an eye out but… nothing."

"Jay's good at off-grid. Why are you worried? He might just be undercover or something. Or sick of bats."

"When he gets sick of bats, he comes here," Dick pointed out. "And he was injured. Sort of. Exposed to a drug with some bad side effects, but he should be fine by now. Should have been fine a week and a half ago."

Roy rubbed the back of his neck, seemingly forgetting he was still holding the dirty rag. "That kind of shit can do a number on your head."

"I know. I'm worried."

"Hm," said Roy. "You're not just here on a mission. The big Bat didn't send you, right?"

"No. He's worried too, of course, but he's doing his own thing," Dick said.

"Yeah. Okay, come here." He gestured for Dick to follow him into the ship. They passed a cabin where Kori was hovering tranquilly, legs crossed, something that looked like a large spark plug held between her hands and glowing faintly. She returned his wave with a solemn nod.

Roy led him toward the back of the ship, to what looked like a workshop. He opened a cubby in the wall, rooted around a bit, and pulled out a red helmet.

"Jay keeps backups around. This is one I was working on for him before he went and changed the design again. But it should still have an uplink. The helmets can talk to each other if you know the code."

"So I can… see what the helmet he has with him is doing?"

"Not really," Roy said. "But you should be able to get an approximate location on it."

"That's great," Dick said, reaching for the helmet. Roy moved it out of his grasp, holding it away.

"Hang on, hang on. First of all, do _not_ tell him I gave you this. He'll figure it out anyway, but I want a head start. Second, if this is anything less than the emergency you've told me it is, _you'll_ need the head start. From me. Got it?"

"Of course," Dick said. "And it is an emergency. Seriously, he was… he was not okay, last I saw him."

Roy nodded, placed the helmet in Dick's hands. "The code is 1281813. Good luck."

Back in the plane, Dick found the right kind of wire to connect the helmet to the plane's computer and fired it up. It was simple enough to navigate the options and find the choice to interface with a paired helmet. Dick crossed his fingers, hoping that Jason still had the helmet on him, and entered the code. A map loaded on the plane's console with a blue beacon pointing out the area of the helmet's lost sibling.

Dick frowned. Then he scowled. He knew exactly where Jason was.

* * *

It was surprisingly easy to infiltrate a secret League of Assassins training compound when you knew exactly where it was. Dick, in full Nightwing gear, crouched on the highest tier of a stepped roof overlooking the packed-dirt courtyard. While the lower roofs were mostly flat, except at the corners, the topmost tier was conveniently peaked with a slope shallow enough to crouch on. The place was modeled on traditional Tibetan architecture – most noticeably that of temple complexes, Dick noted with a roll of his eyes – but it was modern enough. The windows were paned in perfectly clear (bulletproof, unless he missed his guess) glass and the Batplane had attempted to connect to the wifi when he'd hidden it.

The recruits in the courtyard were running staff drills, but they weren't what Dick was watching so carefully. Prowling their formation's perimeter was Jason, dressed more or less like the Red Hood but notably absent the helmet and the bat symbol, though the helmet had to be somewhere close by.

Jason was watching each of the trainees with the same intensity that Dick was watching him with. One of the recruits was a hair slow on a block, and Jason's hand shot out, dragging him from the line. He threw the ninja-in-training to the dirt, handily disarming him in the process, and cracked him across the face with the staff.

He barked something Dick couldn't hear at the trainee, who now had an open cut on his cheek and couldn't seem to stand, then threw the staff at him and stalked off to continue his scrutiny of the exercises.

Dick narrowed his eyes, already plotting how he would ambush Jason, how he would pull him away from this—

The skin on the back of his neck prickled and he rolled to the side, sliding down the roof slightly. He stopped in a crouch, then leapt to the side, higher on the roof as Talia al Ghul made a lazy slash at him with a sword.

"Hello, Richard. What brings you here?" she asked, calmly advancing on him as though they were on a city sidewalk and not a roof tiled in slick ceramic.

"You know what," Dick said. He was at the peak of the roof now, balancing along it, waiting for her to make a move.

"Jason has left your city and your ridiculous rules. You have no say over what he does here, and you are neither welcome nor wanted," Talia said.

"He can tell me that himself," Dick shot back. She wasn't attacking, so Dick risked a glance behind, down to the courtyard.

Training had stopped. Jason was standing with his arms crossed, looking up at him.

A number of his trainees appeared to be missing, and Dick bet he knew where they were headed. Crap.

Dick slid down the courtyard side of the sloped roof. The next level down wasn't too far.

Talia gave chase and Dick drew his escrima sticks. He whirled just as her sword came down, deflecting it with one and following up with the other as they both sailed onto the next lowest roof.

"He called me, you know," Talia said as she knocked his blow aside. "Asked me to rescue him from Gotham. I found him there, lost, despairing, abandoned by you and all the other acolytes." Her kick caught him off guard, connecting solidly with his ribs. "Again."

"I didn't abandon him," Dick growled, flowing into his fall to twist back up again.

"It was his first days after resurrecting all over again, and where were you? Chasing after some amateur chemist."

Dick faltered. The first days after Jason had dug free of his grave? "You didn't." It was a demand. "Talia, tell me you didn't throw him in a Pit."

She just smiled at him.

Dick went on the offensive, whirling to put momentum behind his strike – which never connected. Someone had grabbed his wrist mid-turn, timing it perfectly so that he fell directly to his knees, nearly torqueing his shoulder out of its socket.

Jason stood behind him, grip on his wrist still firm as he pulled Dick's arm up and back. Dick couldn't move without risking torn tissue. A few of the recruits had finally gained the roof.

"Jason," Dick said, keeping his voice calm. "Let go."

"You shouldn't have followed me," Jason said. He used Dick's arm as a lever to throw him down on the roof. He did let go then, but only to drive a booted heel against the side of Dick's head.

When Dick woke up he was lying in the dirt of the courtyard surrounded by once-again complete ranks of would-be ninja forming a neat square around him, Jason, and Talia. Talia paced the perimeter of the square, addressing her pupils.

"This is Nightwing," she told them. "One of the most well-respected heroes in the world. I won't make any of you fight him, because you would lose. But we are lucky enough to have someone with us who is his match. You will watch their fight, and note their respective weaknesses and strengths. There will be a test."

Dick blinked, still prone on the ground. "I'm not gonna fight you," he mumbled up at Jason.

Jason glanced down at him and scoffed. Dick slowly got to his feet, assessing himself for injuries. Just a bad headache, it seemed. He still had his escrima sticks and all of his gear, too.

Jason turned to him, squaring up. Dick shook his head – carefully. "I meant it," he said. "I won't."

"Then you're useless," Jason said. His tone was completely flat; not even bored, just disinterested. So it took Dick rather by surprise when he attacked.

Jason didn't have his guns on him; small favors. Fighting (or trying not to fight) him hand-to-hand would be bad enough. Dick slid to the side, barely avoiding Jason's rush and the follow-up swing of his leg. He didn't pull his escrima sticks from where someone had kindly holstered them while he was unconscious; he wasn't aiming to hurt, here.

Dick slid behind Jason, raising a small cloud of dust from the dry ground. Jason turned with him, centering on him before Dick could do anything that might put him off balance. That was one of the annoying things about fighting Jason: he was faster than a man of his bulk had any right to be.

He was also, for all that he was built like a brawler, a very _precise_ fighter, every move planned and, if not technically perfect, flawed in exactly the way that would make it most effective.

Dick ducked a broad punch, barely, and nearly ran into a knee rising to meet his face. He twisted to avoid it, catching himself on one hand and one foot and springing back to standing as Jason kept coming, pressing him to the perimeter of the square the trainees had made.

Jason hadn't landed a hit on him yet, and that was odd. Dick had a realistic opinion of his own abilities: they were very, very good. But so were Jason's, and while Dick was working to avoid him he hadn't exactly had to get creative.

Because Jason wasn't getting creative.

His attacks were methodical, persistent, solid, but they had no spark behind them. Jason's heart wasn't here, any more than it had been when he'd 'corrected' that trainee earlier, or when he'd pointed a rifle at Bianca Dronning.

"You know, I changed my mind," Dick said, breaking the grapple Jason had tried to pull him into and dancing back. "Maybe I will fight a little."

Jason didn't even hesitate at his words, just darted forward in that unfairly quick way he had. Dick was ready; by this point he was close to the perimeter of the square and it was a simple thing to grab the nearest not-quite-a-ninja and haul him bodily over his shoulder, straight into Jason.

There was a startled cry from the projectile trainee, echoed by the rest of the group who weren't exactly sure what to do with this turn of events. Jason caught the man Dick had flung and tossed him aside, barely pausing.

A bare pause was enough, though. A few of the other trainees decided to take initiative and grab for Dick, but avoiding them was simple enough. He stepped around a grasping hand, under an arm, and then he was in the thick of them, weaving an ever thicker knot of bodies as he pulled more and more into the dance.

Talia, he noted, had extricated herself the moment he'd laid a hand on the first trainee and was now standing well away from the scrum, arms crossed, a decidedly amused tilt to her lips.

"Now this is a little more like it. Thanks for helping out, guys," Dick said amiably, whirling one of them around to collide with another. He leapt a prone body, kicked off one that was still standing, hopped from one pair of shoulders to another, and vaulted off the second pair into the air. One vertical flip later and he was standing well outside the melee, Jason hauling bodies aside to get to him.

"I sure hope you're all learning something," he called. "You too, Jay." He blew him a playful little kiss and then bounded off to the courtyard's walls where conveniently low overhangs meant he could easily jump, grasp, swing… and the rooftops were now his playground.

A quick check showed Talia still hanging back, observing – but then Dick needed to pay attention because Jason had climbed to the roof as well, and, Dick thought, he maybe looked a little annoyed.

Dick laughed while he avoided the next attack, dancing along the edge of the roof like he had all the space in the world. He laughed at the next one, too, and gave Jason a teasing tap on the back of the head as he spun away. He was pretty sure he heard Jason growl at that, so he kept doing it, adding more flourishes and showmanship to the game.

It was _hard_ , doing all that and still evading instead of outright fighting, but it was working. It wasn't long before Jason started blending his styles a little more, attempts at nerve strikes flowing into tries for joint locks or throws.

Their dance took them upward to the next tier of rooftops when Dick had to get particularly creative avoiding a sweep. Jason stared up at him for a moment, both of them breathing hard.

"This is why I left Gotham," Jason muttered before vaulting up to the roof himself.

"What was that, Jay?" Dick asked, stepping back to give him space.

"I can't stand the sight of you," Jason spat.

Dick ignored the way his heart tried to shrivel up at that and just grinned more broadly as Jason tirelessly dove into the attack again. "If you think you're mad now, just wait til you hear how I found you." Duck, spin, tap him on the back. "Roy sold you out, man. Gave me your helmet code and everything."

"For fuck's sake," Jason said. He lunged, and this time Dick had to block instead of dodge; his kick connected solidly with Dick's arm and Dick grunted. "I don't care," Jason growled.

"Yeah, sure feels like you don't care," Dick said, breathlessly. "What I didn't mention? He made me swear this was life-or-death. He threatened me, Jay. Me! For you!"

"I don't care!" A punch this time, and Dick blocked again.

"Kori says she misses you, by the way." Dodge, block. "I had all the Titans searching for you. Superman. All the bats in Gotham, of course."

Jason scoffed. "Looking for me so they could stop me."

"They were worried." This time, Dick caught Jason's arm as he took a swing. He held on, reaching for Jason's shoulder and turning it into a hold. "Bruce didn't believe me, when I told him what I saw. He said 'Was he drugged?' right away. He knew you wouldn't—"

"He knew the case I was on! He's a detective, not a loving father," Jason snapped, pulling to get out of Dick's hold so hard Dick had to let go or risk breaking his arm. Jason spun, driving a wild punch at Dick. All Dick had to do was step to the side and watch it go sailing past, leaving Jason off balance. It was child's play to hook Jason's foot out from under him, sending him sprawling to the rooftop on his stomach, and then to sit on him, astride his back, hand on his shoulder blades to make him stay down.

"He loves you, you idiot! They all do!" He leaned close as Jason tried to twist out from under him. " _We_ all do. And you just have to deal with that."

Jason's shoulders heaved, and he pressed his forehead to the tile of the roof, a muted gasp and a single shudder wracking his body.

Dick reared back. "Jay?"

"Shut up, dickface."

"Jay, are you _crying_? I'm so sorry, I didn't—"

With Dick leaned back, Jason turned over easily and shoved him off. He stayed sitting on the roof, angrily scrubbing a hand under one of his leaking eyes. "God, fuck, _what_ …?"

"Hang on," Dick said. He reached out to grab Jason's wrist and turned it to look at the heel of his hand, slightly damp from tears. "Look." There was a tiny speck of silver, like one little bit of glitter, shining there. "How are you feeling?"

"Like someone tried to twist my lungs into a balloon dog and then made me read _Flowers for Algernon_."

"So, better, then?"

Jason laughed, a breathless, disbelieving sound. "Yeah. Better." He pulled his hand out of Dick's grasp and wiped it against his pants. Then he looked down and blinked, a blank look falling across his face.

Panicked that he was losing him again, Dick looked to see what he'd seen.

In the courtyard, a crowd of ninja trainees was looking up at them, most looking just as blank as Jason was, some looking confused, and one taking notes.

Dick laughed, startling Jason into laughing too. "We should go," Dick said.

"Those poor saps. Yeah, let's leave them alone," Jason agreed.

Dick stood and pulled Jason to his feet and together they walked to the back edge of the roof. "I parked the Batplane not far from here," Dick began.

Then Talia dropped from the next highest roof, landing directly in front of them. Dick and Jason both tensed.

"Relax," she told them. "I am not here to stop you."

"Why do I find that hard to believe," Dick muttered.

Talia frowned at him. "I would have you know that I did _not_ , as you say, 'throw him in a Pit,' and I resent the suggestion that I might do so without dire necessity." She turned to Jason, removing Dick from her attention as though he had dropped off the roof entirely with just a tilt of her head. "I won't keep you from leaving, if that is what you want," she told Jason. "Brutes I have aplenty, and for all your skill, you were not much better than most as you were."

"Gee, thanks."

"I did not know what had befallen you in Gotham, but it was clear you needed a place to recover. I was happy to provide that, and now that you seem to have done so, I would be pleased to have you stay," Talia said. "You are welcome here, Jason."

"Oh," Jason said. "Well, thanks. I mean, really, thanks for everything, Talia. For coming when I called."

"Pulling you from the streets of Gotham when you most need it seems to be a habit of mine," she said with an easy shrug. "I ask only that you remember it, and consider my offer. You were a fair enough teacher with half of your mind veiled. You could be the most revered master of your age, now, if you committed to it."

Dick's eyebrows rose and he watched Jason anxiously for his response. But Jason just shook his head. "No thanks. I'm not really into, you know. Reverence."

Talia nodded as though she expected no less. "Then you may take Mr. Grayson and go, with my regards."

"Hey, who's taking who here?" Dick grumbled, but Jason just put his hand on his shoulder and pushed him in the right direction with a little wave to Talia, who watched them go silently.

Jason made them take a detour to pick up his other helmet – they broke into a window in his quarters to grab it, rather than have to go knocking on Talia's door and tell her they'd forgotten something. But now they were tucked safely into the Batplane, autopiloting their way back to Gotham.

Neither of them was particularly injured, just sore and tired, so they sprawled in the plane's two pilot seats and watched the sky rush past, drifting on post-fight endorphins.

"I brought you Thai food, you know," Dick said, one foot on the console.

"Yeah?"

"The day after the Mirror thing. You weren't answering your texts so I went knocking. Even got some of that gross coconut rice you like."

"It's not gross."

"Yeah, well. Damian ate it."

"You gave my coconut rice to Damian?"

"Well _I_ wasn't going to eat it."

"That's because you have no taste," Jason said haughtily. Dick rolled his eyes at him and Jason rolled his right back. The plane hummed around them.

"I heard you knock," Jason admitted after a while. "I just… I hated the whole world. It was like everything was as bad as I always thought it was. As I always think it is on my worst nights. Everything was ugly, and bloodstained, and… venal."

" _Venal_?"

"Shut up, Dick. That's the only word that works."

"Yeah, let me just. Look it up."

"It means… base. Corrupt in a pedestrian kind of way. It was like, that was just the way the world was, that was the norm. It was like looking in a mirror on my very worst day and seeing my insides reflected everywhere else. Even on you."

"Me?" Dick asked, surprised.

"Yeah, I mean… you're sort of the standard measure for good, right?" Jason wasn't looking at him, was just talking like his words weren't lighting some kind of golden fire in Dick's chest. "Like, you're _genuine_. Sure, maybe you can be a manipulative bastard—"

"Hey," Dick protested, the fire banking considerably.

"—but you could use that power for evil so easily. And you never do. But then all of a sudden I looked at you and I thought _It's all an act. He's playing you and you're letting him. You're making it easy._ I thought, you'd do the same things I wanted to do if you thought you'd gain from it. That nobody's that good, and you were that much worse for making people think it. The whole world was as bad as I was inside, so why not—"

"Hey," Dick interrupted again, more firmly this time. "You're not bad inside."

"No, I know," Jason said. "Most days, I know. But I couldn't remember that most days existed."

"God. That sounds… it sounds like hell," Dick said. He was starting to see where Mirror's death toll came from.

"Yeah, well, luckily I've been to hell before. I called Talia, because she pulled me out of hell last time so why not." He rolled his head against the headrest until he was looking at Dick. "Turns out it was you, this time."

"Well. Talia helped," Dick said grudgingly.

"Don't be modest. Who else could have _annoyed_ a drug out of my system?" Jason asked, grinning.

"It's one of my many talents."

"What I'm trying to say is thank you," Jason said.

"Oh, I got that," Dick replied. They were quiet for a little while longer, until Jason reached across the gap between the seats and took up Dick's hand where it hung over the arm rest.

Dick smiled lazily at him, letting his hand hang in Jason's. "So… pizza?"

"No way, now I want coconut rice."

Dick groaned. "Oh come on, I just had Thai!"

"Yeah, without me!"

"And we were literally just like, right next door to, you know, Thailand! We're practically to Italy by now," Dick complained.

"That's fine, I want crappy Gotham Thai. I want… Royal Thai."

"That place that's right next to Pizza Palace?"

"Oh, is it?"

Dick looked over to Jason to see his best shit-eating grin plastered over his face. He knocked his head back against his headrest and just smiled at the ceiling. "Think so."

Jason swung their hands a little in the space between them, and they watched the sky darken around them.

"Hey Jay?" Dick said eventually.

"Mm?"

"You're welcome. Any time."


End file.
